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Tinto Flavour #4 - 31st of January 2025 - Mali

Hello, and welcome one more week to Tinto Flavour, the happy Fridays in which we take a look at the flavourful content created for the super secret Project Caesar! But before we start, I want to share with you that we have a new job opening in Paradox Tinto: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/come-work-for-tinto.1727521/

Today we will be traveling throughout the Sahara toward the Sahel, where the Empire of Mali stands, ruled by the infamous Mansa Mūsā:

"The mighty Mansa Mūsā Keita of Mali astonished the world one decade ago, when he performed his Ḥajj ('pilgrimage') to Mecca. Such an event was recorded by chroniclers and chanted by minstrels, and it served to establish his fame as the richest man as he spread his prodigality, gifting Zakāh ('almsgiving') gold wherever his long and luxurious courtly caravan passed by.

This display of splendor might have reflected the richnesses of the Malian lands, after its Empire expanded and consolidated under the Keita dynasty. However, one day Mansa Mūsā will pass away, and his successors may not find it so easy to rule over his very diverse holdings..."

Country Selection.png

The mighty Mansa Mūsā is still ruling Mali in 1337 (we don’t know exactly when he died, so we decided to have him as the ruler at the start of the game). As usual, please consider the UI, 2D and 3D art as WIP.

And here are the lands of Mali:
Mali.png

Some more fun camera rotations this week! Today, with the flat map mode on again.

Mali starts with one Vassal, which is Jolof:
Jolof 1.png

Jolof 2.png

Let’s take a look at some Government-related features of Mali, which can be checked in the Estates window:
Estates.png

There is one starting government reform for Mali, the Manden Kurufa:
Manden Kurufa.png

You might also notice that all Estates start with a privilege with the same icon, as it’s a similar one, made to portray the religious diversity of Mali, a country ruled largely by Mande-speaking Sunni people, but with a fragmented, but tolerant, society:
Protected Faith.png

Religions.png

The second screenshot comes from a tooltip on the Religious panel and shows the religious distribution of the country. Please note that we’ve already done the ‘Pagan’ split, but haven’t yet incorporated feedback from the West African Tinto Maps, nor reviewed the starting population.

There are also a couple of unique privileges for the 'Umarā', the Nobility of the country, that may be available later on after an event triggers:
Office of the Farima-Soura.png

Office of the Sankar-Zouma.png

Mali also starts with a couple of unique policies enacted, the first for the Distribution of Power estate law, and the other for the Levy Law military law:
Gbra.png

Ton-tan-jon-ta-ni-woro.png

Mali also starts with 3 Works of Art:
Works of Art.png

Let’s now take a look at some unique advances:
Koroukan Faga.png

This advance is the one that unlocks the Manden Kurufa government reform.

Gold of Bure.png

Mali is famous for its gold exports, yeah…

Mali has a bunch of unique units, also:
Mandekalu Levies.png

Here are the Levy units unlocked by it:
Mandekalu Infantry.png

Mandekalu Horsemen.png

You might note that the description of these two levy units refers to the Farari Corps, which is the following advance:
Farari Corps.png

That unlocks the following Regular units:
Farari Infantry.png

Farari Cavalry.png

Another unique advance:
Kele-Koun.png

That unlocks the Jonow Auxiliary, an Auxiliary unit:
Jonow Auxiliary.png

Finally, another military advance, that unlocks one more unit, and two more buildings:
Sofa Levies.png

Sofa Infantrymen.png

Sofa Barracks.png

Sofa Stockade.png

Let’s now take a look at the narrative content. This event will trigger while Mansa Mūsā is still alive, as an announcement of the potentially harsh time to come:
Zenith of the Mali Empire.png

This is the disaster that may end up triggering for your country, ‘Decline of Mali’:
Decline of Mali 1.png

It will trigger a number of nasty events, such as:
A fragmented realm.png

This event allows you to start playing with Songhai instead of Mali if you select the third option.

If you overcome the disaster, you’ll get a reward, in terms of Prestige, Stability, etc. (we need to do some balance tweaks on it, so there might be more!).

Nonetheless, besides the disaster, you can also get nicer events while playing as Mali, such as some about the development of Timbuktu:
Bolstering Timbuktu.png

And that’s all for today! I hope you enjoyed it! Next week we will travel back to Europe, to the lands of the Crown of Aragon! Cheers!
 
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Could the Gbara council perhaps fit as a parliament for Mali?
We might need to readjust it, yes, as Gbara was created before we created the Parliament types.
 
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I'm sure you all looked into this more than me, but don't most depictions of Mansa Musa depict him with a beard?
Maybe there's some sources from during his Hajj that describe his appearance, but it feels like he should have a big, bushy beard.

1738333676322.png
 
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What about the checkmark? Also why does the desciption says that they are made of materials native to the Sahel when they are common to everywhere?
1. The checkmark is 'Special Conditions'. In this case, it marks that it requires the 'Sofa Levies' advance to be unlocked (so, if you see the building in another part of the GUI, you know that you need to go to the Advances Tree and research the advance to unlock it).
2. Because there has been some materials rebalance since we created the building, and now the description is a bit outdated.
 
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From my understanding (I may be wrong), Mali struggled to assert full control over the extraction of gold, with the extraction being a responsibility of tributary peoples and even struggled to limit the gold supply. Will this be represented somehow?
 
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1. The checkmark is 'Special Conditions'. In this case, it marks that it requires the 'Sofa Levies' advance to be unlocked (so, if you see the building in another part of the GUI, you know that you need to go to the Advances Tree and research the advance to unlock it).
2. Because there has been some materials rebalance since we created the building, and now the description is a bit outdated.
I suppose that some buildings will require different things than advances since otherwise this icon would be useless as there is already an icon for the necessary advance
 
Thanks for the dev diary! I'm curious, given Project Caesar simulates internal politics in more detail than EU4 did, what was the reasoning behind giving Mali a specific disaster for a period of internal political decline? Which parts of Mali's historical decline did you find that PC wasn't able to capture just by giving Mali a weak ruler and letting the regular systems play out?
The country evolved from being the mightiest Sub-Saharan Empire in 1337 to becoming a marginal country two centuries after. This is such a strong historical narrative, that fits very well our 'nudged' historical flavour content, also creating an interesting and different game loop for some years.
 
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The Dyula was the merchant caste among the Mande-speaking people, and they're over-represented among the Wangara, yes.
Ah yes but the Wangara who I believe your estate name refers to are another merchant group, and they are Soninke. You could also theoretically rename the estate to Dioula, as it just means merchant iirc.
 
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